A bird broke on the windowpane—thud, feather-flutter, hush.
The glass hummed, the air held still,
thick with the sound of nothing.
His mother, hands white from wringing,
spoke low, spoke slow, spoke the hush.
—No more, she said, only that.
No more.
And the words, weighty, tumbled down the spine,
nesting deep where night-thoughts grow.
The trees outside—were they always so thin?
The light, pale and cruel as an old priest’s whisper,
smelled of dust and something deeper.
He thought of the dog, the old one,
stiff-legged, bone-buried under the yew tree,
deep in the hush of the never-again.
No more.
The words cracked, split, spilled open—
and behind them—
nothing.
